These two pictures show the South Pole of Venus. They were taken in infrared light. The yellow area at the bottom of each picture is the daytime side of the planet. That is the part of Venus that is lit by the Sun. The South Pole is at the middle of each picture. The two "eyes" of the polar vortex are the red blobs near the pole in the picture on the right. The blobs are connected in the picture on the left. These pictures were taken by the European Space Agency's (ESA) Venus Express spacecraft in April 2006. Image courtesy ESA/VIRTIS/INAF-IASF/Obs. de Paris-LESIA.